Out In The Vastness Somewhere
by Lena Carr
Summary: The old year tips over into the next in Absaroka, Wyoming. A series of Yuletide treats for Yuletide Madness 2015. (Gen, friendship/UST, and a story told in four parts.) Warning for Moretti mouth. Parts 4/4 now up - story complete.
1. Burn All The Blankets, Dry All The Tears

**Part I: Burn all the blankets and dry all the tears** (Henry Standing Bear, Walt Longmire)

Author's Notes at the End.

* * *

Henry woke to a light falling snow on the last day of the white man's year. He rolled over in his narrow bed, upstairs of the Red Pony's kitchen, and considered the grey light in the high window.

He had shut the bar early the night before, for lack of custom. His most regular bar-help had left for better pastures. It was too soon for work, too late to hunt, too dark for reading, too light for sleep.

There was no helping it. Henry got out of bed anyway.

Downstairs he stoked the stove in the corner opposite the fire place and sat next to it until he was certain the fire had caught, then made his way out into the wind.

The county plows had not run the roads since before midnight, but the fall had not been significant. He shuffled a few paces, then stepped off into a slow jog. Gravel crunched underfoot when he wandered off the road. Twice he hit potholes, soaking his sneakers. By the time he turned around, his fleece sweats were wet to the knee and he was sweating under his shirt.

Henry slowed to a walk in the bar's parking lot, breath still coming hard. The snow was tapering off – the evening would be clear, he decided. In the brighter light of day, everything pale was grey and all not grey was mud.

 _Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,  
Beauty oversnowed and bareness everywhere._

Or as his grandmother would have said, _frost become cold, snow past prettiness, and all the pemmican thin and lean_.

Henry sighed and went inside to dismantle Christmas.

Late in the morning, a familiar engine pulled up to the front wall and a pair of highbeams cut through the snow-frosted windows. A cream and red shape resolved itself with a slamming door. Henry wound a string of lights over his elbow and began untangling the next from the pronghorn mount.

"Hey," Walt said, from the doorway.

"Haa'ahe," Henry said, without looking around.

"Happy New Year," Walt said. "You gonna be open tonight?"

"It is tradition, if the weather is good." Henry flicked at the string of lights, flipping them off the spike blacktail. "How else will I make money, unless the bar is open?"

Walt's footsteps stopped halfway across the room. He stood there, still in the process of shedding his jacket, his eyes on Henry. "Gas fields are still hiring, last I checked." Slowly he peeled out of his coat and laid it over the back of a bar stool. "Or maybe you think you're too decrepit for that kind of work."

"Speak for yourself, old man. My knees do not creak every time I stand up."

"Course they don't, you don't have to stand up so far." Walt looked around at the empty bar. "Deena's not here to give you a hand?"

"Pool tournament, in St Pauls. She left yesterday." He tugged at the green wire as it hung up, recalcitrant, on an overbent-nail. "Damn." It had hung up there the year before, he recalled. And two years before. The third year, there had been a blizzard and the Red Pony had been closed for ten days.

"Taking it down by yourself, then?"

"It appears so." Henry flicked the cord, pulled again. "Everyone is very eager to put up Christmas decorations and throw a party, but clean-up appears to appeal to very few." He doubled the wire over his fist and jerked, hard, putting his weight into it.

"Watch it," Walt said, "It'll –"

 _Break_ , Walt probably meant to say, just as the frayed bit of wire came loose, and Henry came down, hard, on his ass.

Walt's hand was under his arm even before he came to his knees. "Leave be," Henry said, evenly. Quietly. Shrugging off Walt. Not snarling. Not shouting.

Walt stepped back and leaned on the bar, watching as Henry fetched a broom and swept up the shattered bulbs. "Don't think it'll anyone if the bar didn't open tonight."

"I have bills to pay."

Walt sighed, looked out the shrouded windows. "Seem to recall someone telling me once that money wasn't everything."

"We were twenty-seven, in Alaska, at Prudhoe Bay, at Christmas. Money was all we had, except booze. And we were swimming in booze." He bent again to push the dirt and glass into the dustpan. "Of course I thought it inconsequential and other concerns more pressing." Like his grandmother, who had not lived to see that next spring.

"Ah," Walt said. He shoved the barstool out, took a seat. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have talked you into staying."

Shaking his head, Henry leaned the broom against the pool table. "No, you were right. I had given my word in the year contract, and the money, while not everything, had a great deal of value." It had paid for the last hospitalization of Amelia Red Jay, for starters, and then for an in-home nurse from off the reservation, when the old woman had refused to go back into the sterile squared-off hospital in March. Had they not been snowed in at the oilfield, Henry would have gone home then, contract or no contract.

He realized he was staring at a fistful of light cords, and that Walt was still sitting at the bar, looking at Henry with those deep eyes that saw so far. Henry sighed and put the string of lights back in the box. "I am sorry. I am dwelling on sad times."

Walt nodded, looked down at his empty hands. "She was your grandmother." After another moment, he said, "If you'd rather not have company –"

"That is not what I said. Besides, it is your opportunity to put up with me. You have been a sullen mess for far too long. Let someone else have a turn."

Walt's head came up, sharply, and for a moment, Henry thought he had gone too far. Then Walt smiled, that quiet grin that reached all the way to his eyes. "Your grandmother would have whomped your butt for being a rude brat."

"Shut up and take the wreaths down off the speaker, white-eye." Henry crossed behind the bar for another empty box and pulled out a can of Rainer on the way. He popped the tab and handed it across the bar. Walt took it and nodded, sipped lightly at the drink.

"Only helping because I don't think the floor could handle you landing on it again, when you fall off the ladder."

Henry snorted. "That is it. You pay for the rest of your beer."

They were no longer the loud young men they had been in the oilfield and fell back on the comfortable silence that had grown up between them in the years since. Another hour, and they had all the red ribbons and green plastic wreaths peeled from the walls and rafters, and were missing no more than four of the gold tinsel bells from the original box of twenty-four. "That is close enough. We only put up twenty-one."

"You had twenty-three last year."

"No, that was the year before last."

"Thought it was last year."

"You did not help last year." Because Martha had died.

"Oh." Walt's eyes were staring at the cardboard box, but that was not what he saw. Then he straightened his shoulders. "Right. If I had helped last year, I wouldn't have let you put that string away with the frayed wire. Get me the electrical tape, and I'll fix."

Henry folded his arms. "Do you not have evil wrong-doers to pursue, lawman?"

Walt shrugged. "Ferg and Vic are on it."

"I thought Ferg was going on vacation. To Montana, and a date with an ice floe."

"Branch got delayed by the storm in Virginia, so Ferg's leaving tonight. I got time." When Henry remained unmoved, Walt said, "You can make me lunch."

So Henry made sandwiches – elk roast cut thick, with mustard and sweet onions - while Walt picked at the wire and applied black electrical tape, and then demanded a pair of needle nose pliers to pry the remains of the shattered bulbs from the seatings.

The can of beer sat all but untouched, so Henry made coffee.

"Deena say when she was coming back?"

"When she won, or when she lost, or when she got tired of playing. There is also a tournament in New Orleans in February, so she may be some time." Henry poured coffee in two mugs. "Did Branch warn you that he would be delayed?"

"He called Ruby, once when he thought he might be delayed, and then after he had to change flights. He's flying into Sheridan tonight. Weather happens." Walt looked up. Henry realized he was frowning. "What," Walt said, "You think I should dock his pay?"

Henry sighed. "No. Weather happens. And it is not my decision." He folded up the remains of lunch. "I am more concerned about the harmony of the rest of your deputies. Is the Ferg unhappy about delaying his departure?"

Walt swallowed down a laugh. "He didn't have to say anything. Vic was indignant enough on his account." He finished with the last light bulb and set the string aside. "She did want to know if there were any Cheyenne stories about frozen ice monsters. I told her I'd ask you."

Henry leaned on the bar, thinking. After a time, he said, "I do not remember any. There are the _mehne_ , but in the winter they sleep in the deep water, or in the mud, like other snakes and the turtle people." He resumed wiping the bar. "Do you remember the tale of the man whose wife slept with a _mehne_?"

Walt took another sip of coffee and made an appreciative grunt. "Is that the one with the bad hunter who had two crippled boys, the wife meets the water-thing when she fetches water, the man finds out, and the man feeds the wife to their sons? The kids run away and the woman's head rolls after them across the prairie?"

"Roughly, yes."

"Then yes, I remember it, and yes, you really are in a bad mood."

Henry shook his head. "When I told that story to a white professor in Berkley, he told me that it was an allegory; that the _mehne_ was the white man, the woman Mother Earth, and the children the twisted production of the corruption of the white man's so-called civilization."

"Really." Walt drank more coffee. "What was the hunter?"

"The Indian, of course, who had murdered our mother the earth in order to feed our own greed."

"Uh huh." Walt touched the brim of his hat, where it rest on the bar top, and made it spin on its crown. "What did your grandmother say about that?"

Henry smiled, remembering the long silence after he had told Amelia of the academic interpretation of the legend. "She said that the story was about what happened when a selfish and vain woman married a shiftless and incompetent man, and also that one should take care in where one goes into the water."

"I don't think I'll tell that story to Ferg."

"Vic may enjoy it."

Walt snorted. "She might." He opened his mouth as if to say something else, but shut it as the bar phone rang.

Henry cocked an eyebrow at Walt, let the phone ring twice, and then picked it up. "It is a beautiful day at the Red Pony Saloon – happy New Year to you as well, Ruby. Yes, he is right here."

Walt took the phone without comment. "Hey, Ruby." He pulled a pen from his jacket and motioned at Henry, who had already reached for a bar napkin. "How far off 287? Where's the ambulance coming from? Yeap. Leaving now." He handed the phone back to Henry and reached for his hat with the other hand.

"Will you be by tonight?"

"Maybe. Depends on, well." Walt shrugged. "You know how it goes."

"I do. Come by tomorrow for lunch."

"Cady wants to have breakfast."

"Which is why I offered lunch. You should not eat alone."

Already halfway to the door, Walt called back, "You make it sound like it's for my benefit."

Henry pitched his voice to carry. "Most things are."

The early noon light had finally cleared the windows, so that Henry could watch Walt raise a hand in farewell, even if the other man could not see Henry return it.

 _A lodge is made warm by the voice of a visitor._ It was strange, Henry thought as he put more fuel into the fire, and lugged the boxes of decorations out the back door and through a foot of snow to the unheated shed, that the bar could be empty with no one there, and yet still so full.

* * *

 _/end part 1/_

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** T for language. Gen, smutless. Set around the start of S2. TV-verse, with some book characterization creep. Canon pairings. I am not sure how well I managed the happiness. Cheyenne legend of the Mehne and the adulterous wife adapted from the story recorded by George Bird Grinnell in 1903. Euro-descent poetry from Shakespeare's Sonnet 5. Titles from the Corb Lund song "The Rodeo's Over." Many thanks to the beta for encouragement and last minute indulgences.

This chapter is for gonergone's Yuletide 2015 request, who asked for Henry, _fic that explores Henry's past…and all the good things to happen to him, and for him to be as happy as his current circumstances will allow_. I am not sure how well I managed the happiness.


	2. All The Folks Have Gone Home

**Part II: The folks have gone home** (James 'The Ferg' Ferguson, Vic Moretti, Ruby)

Author's Notes at the end.

* * *

"Jesus! Fucking morons!" Vic slammed the phone back into the receiver and kicked her chair back against the windowsill in one smooth motion. "Do they not know it's New Year's Eve? Does anyone?"

Vic had a habit of asking rhetorical questions at volume, and had, since the first week on the job. Eight months in, Ferg hadn't decided if it was endearing or just annoying. From where he sat, Ferg couldn't see the lights in Founder's Square, but he had a calendar, and a wristwatch.

"Maybe they're Muslim. Or Chinese," he suggested, checking the last boxes on the day's report, and flipping it over to sign his name.

He didn't have to turn around to see the look Vic gave him for that. "Bullshit. In Wyoming?"

"It could happen. It's Wyoming, not the end of the world."

"Yeah, but you can see it from here." She set her heel on the floor and made the chair roll back and forth, the chair back rapping against the wallrail with every reverse. "I can't believe these people expect me to roll out to a B&E at this hour of the night. To Powder Junction."

That gave Ferg pause. Vic had been hanging out in the bullpen for the last couple of hours, ostensibly watching the phones while Ruby was out, but more obviously poking at Ferg as he tried to finish up his paperwork before vacation started. When she'd answered the phone (only the second call of a very long afternoon) he'd been almost sure that she'd leave on the call out immediately.

He hadn't counted on her disinterest in investigating chicken thefts. ( _Alleged_ chicken thefts.)

"You could see if the Sheriff wanted to handle it."

That got him another look. "He's finishing up that accident up north." Which meant she had obviously considered calling Walt, and that said a great deal about Vic's brazen gumption and the amount of crap that Walt put up with from her.

For his part, Ferg was running out of time, and excuses to not leave.

Vic's other foot came off the desk drawer and she turned to face him squarely. "Ferg, I don't suppose you'd…"

He'd figured out seven and a half months ago to take a firm stand with Vic right away, and stick to it, or else she'd run right over him. "Nope, sorry, vacation."

"You'd seriously rather go freeze your ass off on a frozen lake, trying to catch fish too stupid to swim south for the winter, than ride out to Powder Junction with me in a nice, almost warm sheriff department unit?"

"It's a polar bear plunge, not ice fishing." He pushed back from his desk and spun his chair to look at her. "And yes, I would rather go jump in a lake than go to Powder Junction with you."

"Fucker. You could have at least pretended to think about it." But she was laughing, and collecting her case folder and sidearm, and had shrugged her jacket on before Ferg had his drawer locked. "I hope you drown!" she called after him as he went down the stairs.

He went down to his car and sat there, engine running and heater warming up. Vic trotted out and crossed the street to her unit, pulling out with scarcely a look before roaring off, her brake lights barely flickering before she turned south at the stop sign.

Ferg got out of the car and collected the brown paper bag from the back seat and – because he wasn't Vic, and never would be – he checked both ways before crossing the road and letting himself back into the building.

* * *

Martha Longmire had always managed the Christmas gift exchange, before…well. _Before_. Last year they'd been too distraught, and frankly the Sheriff had been leaving them at loose ends far too often. If it hadn't been for Ruby, they wouldn't have gotten up so much as a wreath.

This year, Cady and Ruby had been putting their heads together on and off since Thanksgiving, and the Friday before Christmas they'd had a nice office coffee-and-cake. Branch and the Sheriff had been stiff and polite, but they'd both said properly congratulatory things about the work Vic and Ferg had done, plus even more honest praise of Ruby.

"No gifts?" Ferg had asked, when the party had been announced, because they'd always done a little gift exchange. Before. Nothing significant, just gift certificates to the Busy Bee, or a framed article from the _Courant_. Jokes, most of them, because Martha had a wicked sense of humor and she and Ruby always came up with something new.

Ruby had sighed and shaken her head. "Not this year."

Ferg guessed it wasn't just Walt and Cady who missed Martha.

Still, it wasn't quite right. And it was another not-quite-right, to add to the list of things that were making the world shift. Martha Longmire dead. The county not quite prospering, what with all the energy drilling going on elsewhere. The Little Bird case. Branch and Walt walking stiff legged around each other. The casino construction still dragging on and on.

None of anything that Ferg could fix.

Two Sundays before Christmas, he had supper with his parents, like every Sunday when he wasn't out on a call. He'd helped his mother hang decorations and watched football with his father, updating them on the office news during the commercial breaks.

"Such a shame about Martha Longmire," his mother said, from where she sat, wrapping the last of the employee stocking stuffers. It was a company tradition, the Christmas gifts. _Costs more money every year_ , his father groused, but there had never been a time in Ferg's memory, even in the worst of times, when they hadn't seen to it that every employee got _something_. Ferg watched her practiced fingers, folding colored paper around this year's gift – playing cards with _Ferguson Fine Construction_ emblazoned on the back – and tucking them into paper bags with cocoa mix and popcorn. "I'm sure you've been able to step up and help take some of the burden off the Sheriff, now that you're a full-time deputy."

"About time," Ferg's father grunted from his chair. "Been due for a while now."

"So you _are_ having a party?" His mother's eyes locked on Ferg over her glasses. "At the sheriff's office?"

"Yes, but no gifts." He hesitated, mindful of his father's hovering attention. "I'm…thinking about doing something. For everyone. Not a big thing. But…it's better now, than last year, but still not good."

His mother sighed and dropped her hands in her lap. "Honey, presents can't make people like each other."

Ferg drew breath – to protest, to point at the stack of bright paper bags at her feet, to say… _something_.

His father got there first. "What were you thinking about, boy?"

"Do you still have that desk name plate I gave you, a while back?"

That brought his father's eyes from the tv screen and focused on Ferg. "If you'd ever come by the office, you'd see it. On my desk."

Ferg swallowed. "So, yeah. That. I was wondering, if you still had those maple boards…"

His father held his gaze for a long moment. "Well, you better not dawdle, if you're going to get it done by Christmas." And then he'd turned back to the game.

Mac Peterson gave Ferg the stink eye over four one-foot rough-cut lengths of lumber dumped on his worktable, ten days before Christmas, but agreed to see what he could do, in exchange for three of Ferg's best pieces of Montana white jade.

"Just the names?" he asked, turning the wood over in his hands and frowning at the grain lines. When Ferg hesitated, Mac said, "Throw in that sweetwater moss agate, and I'll burn the sheriff logo in it, too. Still got the template, from when you guys did that send-off for Sheriff Connally." He set the board down. "Gimme a week. No promises."

Which just left the insets, the part that would make the presents, well, mean something. And that thought alone was enough to tempt Ferg into giving up the whole thing as a bad idea. It wasn't in the _tradition_ of Absaroka Sheriff Department Christmas gifts, that they be personalized. Or special.

These would be.

 _If_ he did it right. _If_ it worked. In between handling a D &D, Ferg jotted down another set of ideas, changed his mind about the piece for Branch, thought about including Cady, and maybe former Sheriff Lucian Connally, added a third option, and then ripped up the paper again.

Branch went on vacation a week before Christmas, which made things easier, except for how Walt sent Ferg down to the Powder Junction substation, and he couldn't get the plates back from Mac in time to finish them before Christmas. Three days in Powder Junction did give him plenty of time to think it over, and with the pressure to finish by Christmas off his shoulders, the presents-that-weren't-Christmas-gifts became, well, fun.

Vic's was easiest. He'd known what stone he was going to pick for her within an hour of hatching the idea. Ruby wasn't a problem, either – he had to do some last minute swapping to have enough polished rocks to fill the inset, but deciding on the rocks wasn't a problem. He spent the most time on Branch's, going through his rock collection five and ten times, before going back to one of his earliest choices. He still wasn't sure if the Tin Cup jasper was _Branch_ , exactly, but it was a nice enough rock, and it was Wyoming, through and through.

He changed his mind about Walt's three times, before deciding that Walt wasn't the sort to take easy offense, and if the sheriff really didn't like it, he had the old name plate that was perfectly functional.

Now, on New Year's Eve, with the last of the light long gone from the eastern sky and the holiday lights still on in Founder's Square, Ferg bustled from desk to desk. He didn't bother putting on a light – he knew all the pieces by now, by weight and heft. Branch's was the heaviest, the sheriff's the only one with the inset to the left of the name. ( _It had an interesting knot on the other end,_ Mac had said. _Trust me, it looks better this way._ ) Ruby's inset was pale white, with the velvet backing. And that left Vic's.

He stood in the middle of the bullpen, feeling like a burglar in the middle of his own workplace, and about pissed himself when the phone rang. He thought about leaving it for the machine, and the automatic message about contacting the duty pager.

But Ruby'd just replaced the answering machine and there had been two missed calls since the middle of December – nothing more serious than a report of an abandoned vehicle, but Ruby had been cross for a whole half day over the second one. _What if it was someone who had really needed us?_

It rang again. He was on vacation. Had been, really, since lunch. It wasn't his problem. The phone rang once more while he dithered, and then Ferg threw himself across the bullpen and halfway across his desk, scrambling for the receiver and the blinking button that was line one.

"Absaroka Sheriff's office, Deputy Fergu- oh, hi, Branch." He straightened up, tried to not pant into the phone. "No, just me, and I was heading out. Well, I was just covering – no, don't worry about it. The sheriff said I could have a couple extra days on the other side. Sure, hold on." He dug through the desk for a pen. "I can leave it for the Sheriff, or I could just call – right. See you around. When I get back, I mean."

He hung up the phone and sagged down on the edge of the desk. He squinted at the note in the dim light and decided it got the point across. Heaving himself up, he marched back into Walt's office, put the note square in the middle of his blotter and then scampered out, only pausing again at Ruby's desk to straighten the new name plate, before heading out the door and north to a noon appointment with a frozen lake.

* * *

It was snowing again, his first day back. Ruby looked up from her logbook when Ferg came in. "Hold on, Eddie. I'll call you back in ten minutes." She hung up and came around the dispatch desk before Ferg reached the swing gate.

"Oh, Ferg, you sweet darling," she said, and hugged him warm and fierce. "It's beautiful. And you shouldn't have."

He shrugged, suddenly flustered. "It wasn't a big deal, my dad had the wood and I already had the rocks." Well, he'd had most of them. And he could always get more.

"James Ferguson. You think I don't know rubies when I see them?" She half turned and gestured at her desk, and now Ferg could see how she had placed the name plate, canted in the left corner of her desk, so that someone in the visitor's chair could read it. The inset looked good, still, with the red swirl of tiny gems bright against the white velvet. "I put that way, so I can look at it any time I like." She turned another smile on him. "You did good, Ferg."

He swallowed and felt the corners of his mouth dig in. "I, uh, I got to get to work. I guess everyone else is already out on a call?"

Ruby snorted and returned to her desk. "More like, not in yet. Pileup with a possumbelly trailer full of dairy culls on the interstate late last night, Walt and Branch were working it well past three am."

"Oh, man, that sucks." Livestock wrecks were never pleasant, and between the dead cows and the Sheriff and Branch, Ferg was just as glad to miss it. He let the swing gate shut behind him and hung his jacket on the back of his chair. "And Vic?"

"Walt sent her down to Powder Junction two days ago. She should be back in tonight if the weather holds." Ruby picked up the handset and looked at Ferg. "Looks like it's all yours, at least for an hour or two." She turned back to the phone. "Absaroka County Sheriff's department, how can I help you?"

Ferg looked around the bullpen – at Vic's desk, with yellow legal pads and a Wyoming legal code workbook fighting for ownership of her blotter, and the in-box still full. At Branch's, as neat as ever, but with the new name plate centered square and proper. He peeked around the corner of the Sheriff's office, but backed away and went back to his own desk.

He sat down and looked around the office, his office, in the clear pale light of morning. And it was good.

"Ferg!" Ruby hollered. "Vandalism out at Poplar Storage. They say they need a police report for insurance." She held out a slip of paper for him. "Said they'd meet you at the gate."

Ferg took the note and his jacket. "On my way."

* * *

/end of part 2/

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** T for language. Gen, smutless. Set around the start of S2. TV-verse, with some book characterization creep. Canon pairings. Inspiration for the rocks largely comes from the story of W Dan Hausel as related on various Wyoming Gemstone blogs. Artistic license has moved the Billings, Montana Polar Plunge to noon on the first of January. Titles from the Corb Lund song "The Rodeo's Over." Many thanks to the beta for encouragement and last minute indulgences.

This chapter is for Gwendolyngrace's Yuletide 2015 request - who wanted any characters, and included Ferg as a possibility.


	3. Even The Rank Ones Got Rode

**Part III: Even The Rank Ones Got Rode** (Walt Longmire, Vic Moretti)

Author's Note at the end.

* * *

After sunset, the sky had cleared out to black jet, smooth as slate and dusted with stars. Walt pulled back into Durant from the east – he'd taken the long way around, the better to watch the last of the sunset fade – and circled the snow-blanketed park at town center. In Founder's Square, the young saplings stood draped with insubstantial garments of holiday lights, as if the strings of delicate lamps could ward off the cold. Walt parked the truck and killed the engine. Instead of stepping down from the Bronco and climbing the steps to the sheriff's office, he sat with his hand on the door, staring at the trees.

Martha had been enthusiastic about the green space, when the decades-old crumbling wreck of the Durant Grocer and Warehouse had finally been demolished and the town council announced plans to build park benches and plant grass. She hadn't campaigned for it, not the way she'd been an advocate against the casino. But she had written a brief letter to the editor of the _Durant Courant_ when the proposal had first been made, and had pushed for northern prairie aspens instead of the eastern poplars called for in the original design.

 _There aren't trees on the northern prairie,_ Walt'd said. He'd even had Henry to back him up. _Indeed. That is why they call it prairie._ Martha'd frowned at him, and at Henry, and written another letter to Ed Brown.

Now the trees were three years old, and Martha had been gone for two winters.

And here he was, as maudlin as Henry at the edge of the year.

Across the greenspace, another lightbar turned in and circled the square to stop behind Walt. It was unit two – Vic's five-year-old truck – and sure enough, Vic bounced out of the cab nearly before it stopped moving. She scampered up the sidewalk to Walt's side of the Bronco, and he opened the door rather than roll down the window, which tended to stick when it got cold.

"Hey," she said. "You okay?" When he nodded, she dragged up an ungloved hand to rake pale hair out of her eyes and rushed on. "Good, 'cause it's fucking freezing out here. I'm going up. You coming?" Before he could answer, she had stuffed her hands back in her jacket and trotted off, chin tucked into her jacket collar and not looking before she crossed the road.

He should check on the office before he went home. Vic had worked Christmas Eve as well, it wasn't fair to leave her with whatever random calls had come in.

The wind was still blowing in his open door. He stepped out and crossed the road, not quite fast enough to catch the door before Vic closed it behind her.

Her voice floated down the stairs. "God damn it, Ferg, did you have to turn the heat _off_?" The upstairs office door slammed shut.

Walt trudged up the stairs and opened the private door to his office. If Ruby had left any notes, they'd be here anyway, on his desk. He'd check for post-its, make sure Vic had everything down, and then be on his way. Maybe stop and get another couple six-packs of Rainier on his way home. He took his hat off, but Vic was right, it was cold in the building, and he left his coat on.

As soon as the outer door shut, Vic hollered from the bullpen. "Walt!"

He was getting used to her voice at an elevated volume. This was annoyance, not alarm. Not even worth flinching at, really. "Yeah?"

"Walt, did you get me a Christmas present?"

"No." He flicked on the desk lamp and stopped, pausing mid-reach for the single yellow note on his blotter. There was a new name plate on his desk. He picked it up – hat still in the other hand – and stared at it.

"Who the hell did this, then?"

The Absaroka Sheriff's Department insignia filled the right hand end of the plate – the familiar elements of the seal – star, mountains and open book, enclosed by the Latin. _Vero est Justicia_. Truth is justice.

"Did what?"

"New name plate on my desk." Vic's voice, now more curious than annoyed, floated in from the other room. "Branch's got one, too."

Well, that at least was a clue. "Ferg, I think." The left end of the name plate held a polished slice of stone – an irregular half circle of black, tawny gold, and pale blue. Walt stared at it, feeling as though he should recognize the rock. "He's the rockhound."

Vic came to the door of his office. "Is that what this is, then? One of his rocks?" She held up a long wedge of stained maple, the near twin of Walt's, excepting the inlaid stone. "What's this, jet?" She flipped it back around and studied the rock. "Pretty, whatever it is."

Walt blinked and tucked his nameplate under his arm, dropping his hat on the desk. "Here, let me see." He glanced at the tiny pool of light on his desk and ushered Vic back out into the bullpen and the brighter overheads. Vic didn't relinquish the wooden piece, but held it up at collar-bone height for inspection.

Walt frowned, tilted the name plate so the light fell on the stone, and ran his thumb over the smooth ink-black surface.

"What is it?" Vic asked again. "No, let me guess. Slate?" When he dropped his hand, she turned the gift back around, clearly entranced. "Do you have any clue? God, there's no note, if I have to wait until that little shit comes back from vacation –"

"It's anthracite –" Walt's brain finally caught up with his mouth, and he cut off the last half of the name. "Yeap. Almost positive. Anthracite. A, uh, rock. Probably from Pennsylvania. It's not something we have much of here in Wyoming." There was no reason that thinking of Vic and Pennsylvania should make his gut clench.

Vic's eyebrows arched and she looked again at the rock. "Shiny. Well, that's…wait." She frowned, and Walt could all but hear the gears flipping over in her brain. "Anthracite?" Her voice rose an octave and a half and an easy fourteen decibels. "As in, anthracite _coal_?" Her face went from delighted to incredulous in the span of a sharp breath.

He decided to appeal to Vic's sense of charity. "Look, I'm sure Ferg meant –"

"Meant what? To give me a lump of coal? Fuck me." She stood there staring in disbelief at the name plate in her hands. "He did. He gave me a lump of coal. For Christmas."

Time to try for conciliatory. Walt sighed and raised his hand to rub at one eyebrow. "Technically, it's a New Year's - " He broke off when the nameplate slipped from under his armpit. He snatched at it and got his fingers closed around the plate before it hit the floor.

Her head snapped around like it was on a swivel. "What's that?" she demanded.

"Ah." He looked at the long triangular block, at the letters that spelled out _Sheriff Longmire_. "This?"

"Yes, that." She pointed. "That from Ferg, too?"

"Probably." It wasn't really like he could bring any other options to mind.

"Show me." And when he hesitated, she made as though to snatch the block from his hand.

He warded her off with one hand. "Hey."

She stepped back and adopted a more persuasive attitude. Or what Vic probably imagined to be a more persuasive attitude. " _Hey_. I showed you mine." A pause, then, seriously, "Please."

When he held the piece out and turned it so she could look, her reaction was satisfactory. "Ohhhh. That's…that's gorgeous." One finger, uncharacteristically restrained, traced the edge of the stone, where the black stone met the lighter blue band. "I mean, if you like blue rocks." She raised her eyes to meet his. "Do you know what this one is?"

He started to shake his head, then narrowed his eyes and looked at the dark stone again, and the dark grey rings that could barely be traced against the darker background.

 _Well, damnation…_

"You do know! Tell!"

"It's. Ah." He stared to form the name, but found his mouth unwilling to utter the syllables. It was ridiculous and Vic was going to bust a gut laughing. "It's from over in Eden Valley. The Blue Forest." She blinked, cocked her head expectantly. Walt sighed and gave up. "It's a fossil. Petrified wood."

Her face froze. She held his gaze for five slow heartbeats, and he thought she might actually not react.

Then she clapped both hands over her mouth and burst out laughing. Howling, in fact. To the point where she could not stand up, and staggered three steps to fall into her chair.

Walt stood there and put his hands on his hips, nameplate clenched in one fist, and just stared. She got control of herself, looked at him again, and busted up laughing. Again.

He looked from the striking piece of mineral to his best deputy, collapsed in a fit of giggles, and then back to the blue stone.

He suddenly felt much less inclined to drive back home.

He did go put the new nameplate back on his desk, stopping in the hallway to bump up the furnace. Like both North and South Dakota, he was largely in favor of global warming. The noises from Vic's desk resolved themselves into snickers. He hung his coat on the office tree, and retrieved his hat from the desk to join his coat.

When he came back, Vic had largely regained control. By dint of not looking at him, she even managed to choke out an apology. "I'm sorry. Really, I am."

Walt stared at her with a face as stern as he could hold.

Vic blinked and swallowed. "I am sorry. I think it's beautiful, and I'm sure Ferg worked very hard on it…"

Walt gave up and let the smile out. Vic groaned and buried her head on her desk. "I hate you."

"Don't worry about. Let's see what else Ferg got us." He tapped her shoulder as he went by. "C'mon." Vic wiped her eyes and put on her game face.

There was nothing on Ferg's desk, but that was only to be expected. _Have to get the Ferg something._ He hadn't a clue what.

"Hey," Vic bumped his elbow and pointed across the bullpen fence. "Is that a new one on Ruby's desk?"

Ruby's was, of course, rubies. "Probably some garnets mixed in there," he said, holding the name plate overhead and tipped up to the light. This one's inset had a white velvet backing, with a curving groove to hold the stones, and a clear glass plate over it all. "Maybe some pink sapphires too."

Vic stuck her head under his arm to get a better look. "Is that bad? I mean, they're all red, how can you tell?" She canted her head, her blond hair brushing his sleeve.

He shrugged, suddenly aware of how close Vic stood, how comfortable it was, to stand here with her inside the curve of his arm and to invite her sharp inspection. He swallowed, set Ruby's name plate down. "No," he said and stepped back. "Some garnets are larger and more valuable than some rubies. He refused to let his eyes rest on the curve of Vic's hip as she bent to inspect the red stones, trying to pick out the true rubies. "Let's take a look at Branch's."

Branch's rock was a respectable-sized lump of rainbow jasper. "Not polished," Vic observed, running a finger over the rough surface. "But…" the side of her mouth twitched.

None of them were polished. "Branch'll appreciate it."

Vic snorted. "He better, after screwing Ferg out of two days of his vacation." She put the name plate back on Branch's desk. "Did he ever call and say he'd actually gotten back in town?"

Which reminded him of the post-it on his desk. "Hold on. Ruby left a note."

It wasn't Ruby's handwriting after all, but Ferg's scrawl. Walt had to read it twice to make sense of it.

When he came back out, Vic had finally shed her jacket and settled down at her desk. Still staring at the note, Walt crossed to Branch's side of the double desk and kicked the chair back. He passed the yellow slip to Vic and sat.

"'Branch C called,'" she read out loud. "God, Ferg, did you write this in the dark? 'Landed in Sheridan, will be in tomorrow at zero-eight.'" She snorted and leaned over to tap the note down on Walt's side of the desk divider. "Says to call if you need back up. Nice of him."

Walt shrugged. "Weather happens." The unresolved issues of Branch and the election sat like a bad chicken sandwich in his gut, something that wasn't going away on its own, but which couldn't be made any better by ruminating on it.

He stared at the darkness outside, where the fairy lights around the saplings outnumbered the headlamps of passing vehicles by a factor of a thousand or more. He resisted the hopeful thought that, despite the clear skies, it might still be a quiet New Years. No good ever came of that kind of wishful thinking.

Vic's voice drew him back from the darkness. "How was that accident up north?"

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Nothing big. Visitors from out of Billings, stayed with family – Devin and Donna Checkert - at Kirton Crossing over Christmas. Heading back up when they hit that wet spot at the bottom of Byvers Hill and slid off the road." Vic's eyes blinked and went distant. "You don't have any idea what I'm talking about." Even after eight months, there was still a lot that she didn't know. People, landscape.

She folded her arms on the desk and put her chin on her fist. "Nope. Not yet."

Something about that _not yet_ made the weight in his gut lighter. "Give it time."

She shrugged. "Stranger things have happened. I heard they called an ambulance out to the crash?"

"Front seat passenger had a closed head injury from breaking the side window with her head. She was conscious but pretty disoriented at the scene. They decided to transport her straight up to Billings."

"Good," Vic nodded. "I mean, sucks for them, but she'll be close to family."

It was a close match for his own thoughts at the scene. The Checkerts had met them at the scene of the accident – one to drive the relatives to Billings, the other to deal with the wrecked car. It was as close to a happy ending as one got with accidents on icy roads.

The heater kicked off, having brought the temperature in the office back up to a reasonable level, and in the sudden quiet he could hear the clock tick. A quarter past eight. He still didn't feel like going home, felt like he could sit here for a very long time, telling Vic stories of places she hadn't been and people she didn't know.

Outside, the lights on the trees blinked on and off.

He cleared his throat. "There's no reason for you to stay here, you know. It's not going to get crazy until midnight, if then. You can go, take a few hours at home." He turned away from the window, met her eyes. "Go spend time with your husband."

She sat up and shook her head. "Nope. No reason to go home tonight." Her mouth was set.

Walt tipped his chair further back and folded his arms. "Vic."

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Sean's out in Campbell. Left early this morning. They've got some sort of emergency, related to some sort of accident related to some sort of stupidity by some sort of drunken rough-neck." She leaned back in her chair and propped her foot up on the desk drawer. "When he left, he was talking about maybe having to go to Cheyenne and file a report with the DNR. Something about excessive contamination of ground water." She kicked at the drawer. "So he's not home, I'm working, and so much for my big plan of swapping days off so Sean and I could enjoy the lights of the big city for New Year's."

"I'll see that Branch makes it up to you."

She shook her head. "Don't bother. If you don't win, and if I stick around, I don't want bad blood between me and the new boss."

It only made sense. Vic had to cover her bets. "Not a bad idea." He turned her words over in his mind. "What if he doesn't win?"

The mischievous devil-may-care grin came back. "You win, you'll find out."

He drew in a breath, on the verge of saying, _tell me you'll stay_. His throat closed on the words. He couldn't bear to have her laugh at him again, not for that. Not tonight.

Something of that must have showed on his face, because she looked away. Clearing her throat, she asked, "So, what do people do for New Year's, out this end of the world? Besides the Ferg's ball-freezing polar-bear stupidity?"

"Depends on the weather. Sometimes it's too cold for anything more exciting than watching ice on the inside of the windows."

She leaned her chin on her fist. "Sounds fascinating," she breathed. "I'll bet it beats watching paint dry all to bits."

"Depends on who you're watching it with."

She laughed, as he'd hoped she would. "I'll have to see if Sean is up for that. He doesn't always like new things – he's more of a 'watching grass grow' kinda guy."

Walt shook his head. "I know it's not the sort of excitement you're used to, back East. We're kinda quieter out here."

"Oh, I don't know, I hear big changes are coming. With the casino going in, some of you might even get cable. You could watch the ball drop in Times Square, live, with the rest of the country." She gave him a look. "Times Square. It's in New York. The City."

"We've heard of Times Square," he said, trying to not sound too defensive.

"Oh, yeah?" Across the width of two desks, the demons were dancing in her eyes again.

"Yeah." He tapped the pads of his fingers on the blotter, tracing the worn grooves left by Branch's pen. "They used to delay the broadcast out here, you know. Before your time." She smirked at him. "Then all the satellite dishes moved in, and I guess they gave up the facade. By the time Cady graduated high school, everyone knew that the Times Square ball dropped at ten out here."

"What did you do then?"

He hesitated, feeling the words in his throat, rough as Branch's stone. "We were living in town still. Cady might hang around long enough to watch the show with her parents, but then she'd be off with friends to some party. The Red Pony, half the time."

"Leaving you and the missus for a night in?" Her grin widened. "Getting your wild thing on?"

He swallowed, remembered, nodded. There it was again, the dropping-away feeling in his gut. He clamped down on it, too late, knowing the reaction was already visible on his face. Enough for Vic to pick up on, at any rate.

"Fuck," she said, all play gone. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay." Because it was. It hurt, still, but before it had been like a gut wound, like a broken rib that ached every time he breathed. Now - now it was like a peeling scab, or a muscle gone tight from an old break. He wasn't back in the saddle, not yet. But it wouldn't do him any harm to sit on the fence and watch the remuda move about the corral.

Vic looked back at him, eyes demanding nothing, asking no more than he could give.

This time, it was his turn to look away. Instead, he stared at Branch's desk, at the new name plate with the egg-sized lump of multi-colored rock.

"Walt," Vic said. "Tell me something."

He moved the nameplate around, made the edge line up with the blotter. "Yeah?"

"Walt?" She sighed, and didn't say what she had been thinking. Instead she pointed at the Wyoming map on the wall and asked plaintively, "Where the hell is Eden Valley?"

So he pulled the framed map – a taped-together mix of USGS grids and pastel WYDOT sheets – down off the wall, and Vic shifted lamps and inboxes to make a cleared space.

He showed her Eden Valley and the high ground that was the Blue Forest, the spot south of Laramie where they'd found diamonds in the 70's, and a few of the best known spots for gold panning. He had to think for a bit, to remember where the opal deposits had been found.

"Ferg would be able to tell you," he said, when Vic pressed him for more details than he could bring to mind. "He's been all over the state, more or less – chasing rocks when he wasn't fishing."

Vic shrugged. "Sure, when I want the five-hour briefing. The condensed version? That I'll get from you, thanks." She leaned past him, her hip brushing his as she pointed at the north end of the county. "Up here, is that Kirton Crossing?"

"No, down here a bit. Not as deep in the mountains." He touched a finger to the map. "Here. The accident was about right here." Walt pointed out a tight knot of concentric brown rings. "That's Byver's Hill." He followed the road back down to the highway and pointed out various spots of problematic fame.

"…and this intersection, here – the banking's too shallow on the turn. A speeder goes over the lip about once a year, generally ends up flipped over and pointing east." He trailed off, let his finger drift south down the edge of the Bighorn Mountains, halted on the edge of a faint blue line.

Vic frowned. "What's there?" She read the closest municipal name. "Absalom? Looks like a sprawling metropolis." The town was marked with the smallest of dots, barely more than a twelve point full stop.

"My parents had a ranch here, years back."

"What? There's a Longmire spread?"

He felt his face crease. "Yeap. Years back. Hard to cut hay and pull calves when you're out chasing speeding cars."

"And here I thought your cabin was out in the woods. That's halfway to nowhere." She considered the spot, used her fingers to measure the distance from Durant. "That's a good four hours, one way. You ever get back out there?"

He shrugged. "Not often. The job keeps me busy."

"Show it to me." The words came out in a rush and she put a hand to her mouth, as if wanting to recall them. And then, being Vic, who scrambled up hillsides that angels would fear to survey, she went on again. "I mean, if I'm supposed to figure this county out…" She straightened up and folded her arms, leaning back against the edge of her desk. Almost at arm's length.

He stood with his hands on his hips. _Yes_. "Maybe. Sometime, if we're out that way." She met his eyes steadily. "Sure."

Her phone rang.

"Shit." She turned away, dug in her jacket pocket and came up with her cell. "Who the fuck…Moretti," she snapped. "Oh, good evening, Mr. White." She pressed her free hand to her head, apparently not unhappy with the caller. "Yes, yes, thank you for getting back with me. Yes, it's about the break-in earlier today." Focused on the phone call, she yanked a drawer open at her desk and pulled out her working notepad. Pen in her teeth and phone still pressed to her ear, she shoved at the map frame, clearing an opening on the desk top.

When Walt lifted the map away, she flashed him a look of thanks and went back to scribbling in her book.

Walt checked the clock – just past nine. He hefted the map and rehung it on its nail over the binders of the state AG's bulletins and Ruby's logbooks. His eyes found again the unmarked line that was Buffalo Creek, north and west of where the little creek joined the Powder River.

 _Show it to me._

"Hot damn!" Vic whooped and slapped a hand on the desk as she snapped back on her feet.

He turned on his heel, away from the map. "Break-in?"

"Break-in, larceny of livestock, and animal endangerment!" Her expression was a bit more delighted than her words warranted. "I got called out to Powder Junction, yes, all the hell the way out there, for a chicken theft. But not chickens, _quail_. White Quail, a breeder farm, they raise baby quails for release in the spring or something. So people can chase them with dogs in November." She waved both hands. "I don't know, not my thing. I'd rather watch ice on the windows. But someone broke in this morning, tore up some of the cages, and let out a bunch of birds. Stole some, too. It was crazy, they still hadn't rounded them all up when I showed up this evening." She brandished the phone. "But!"

He raised his eyebrows, folded his arms and leaned back against the cabinet. "…but?"

"Surveillance camera! Confirmation! They did have one!"

Walt frowned. "The quail farmer wasn't sure earlier today if they had a surveillance system? Is it just me, or is that the sort of thing that would hard to forget?"

Vic nodded her head vigorously. "You'd think, right? But the farmer was out of town – Billings - and it was his kid – who was with him - who actually ran the system, and they weren't back yet. So I left a number with their hired help, asked the kid to call. And left a message at the gas station. Which they got, and they called." She flashed Walt a grin. "Police work, looking at cha."

"Good job."

She snorted, but her attention was back on the notebook. She stopped moving and stood stock still in the middle of the bullpen, biting her lip. Walt waited.

Her voice was quieter when she finally spoke. "Were you serious, Walt, about not needing me here?"

"Not right now, no." He forced the sense of foreboding away. She wasn't declaring an intention to leave Absaroka. But she wasn't asking permission to take a couple hours off, either. "You want to run out to Powder Junction tonight? Now?"

She shrugged, already moving past him back to her desk. "It's New Year's. They'll still be up for a couple hours. And there's another question I wanted to ask. I'll get a copy of the disks, and be back before one." She stuck her notebook in her teeth and shrugged the jacket on. "Like you said, no sense in just sitting here, waiting for something to happen. You could call Branch, if you need a hand."

He watched as Vic ran her hands over her coat and hips, finding weapon, radio, cuffs. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled out her ear flap hat and gloves, smooth efficiency a decent mask for her need for motion. She straightened and stopped, meeting his eyes. "Unless you want me to hang around?"

Walt passed a hand over his jaw, feeling the stubble scrape against his palm, and shook his head. "I'll manage. Call when you're heading back."

She grinned in delight, touched her new name plate as if for luck, and strode out the door. From the chair by the window, Walt watched as she flipped on the lights and pulled out, racing her highbeams to the corner.

He wondered if she'd ever had her palm read at a Philadelphia sooth-sayer's, and been told she'd be spending her New Year's investigating a poultry break-in, some winter yet to come.

 _We defy augury._

Even when she was gone and away, he stayed at the window, watching the lights flicker in the square, and the passing cars. The clock ticked on, rising towards ten o'clock, and the end of the year.

* * *

/end part III/

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** T for language. Gen, smutless. Set around the start of S2-ish. TV-verse, with some book characterization creep. Canon pairings. Inspiration for the rocks largely comes from the story of W Dan Hausel as related on various Wyoming Gemstone blogs. Titles from the Corb Lund song "The Rodeo's Over." Many thanks to the beta for encouragement and last minute indulgences.

This chapter is for tree, who asked for Vic and Walt - _please just give me something from before it all went to shit. It could be romantic or friendship, as long as it shows the depth of their bond that everybody could see was there._

Glossary: Remuda – western cowboy term for a group of horses, especially the extra remount working horses kept for working cows over several days. Synonym of cavvy. (As far north as Wyoming, cavvy would probably be used more often, but in the novels, Craig Johnson uses remuda.)


	4. It's Likely The Weather Will Change

**Part IV It's likely the weather will change** (Walt Longmire, Cady Longmire, Branch Connally, Henry Standing Bear, Lucian Connally, Vic Moretti)

 **Author's Notes at the End.**

* * *

The ringing phone snatched Walt out of a shallow, dream-plagued sleep. He jerked awkwardly, pinned to the musty leather of the office couch by the council blanket and his stiff back. The phone's next ring was interrupted by a quiet voice. Male. Branch.

Walt lay back down and let the blood hammer in his ears while the last of the dream slipped away.

He had stood on the banks of a dark river, watching Martha walk down the slope, away from him. He had been entangled in endless loops of a rough hemp rope, which had been coiled up and around and through a tight clump of aspen trees. Fairy lights had dangled from the rope by trefoil fishhooks, dancing out of time with the shimmering gold-coin leaves as Walt struggled against the bindings. He had called after Martha, shouted until his throat burned, but Martha had stepped into the water as if she did not hear him.

On the couch, Walt pressed a hand to his closed eyelids, tried to bring Martha's face to mind. _And you wonder why she didn't turn around._

The phone call in the other room came to an end with the rattle of the receiver back into the cradle and Branch's long stride across the bullpen. Walt twisted his head to bring the wall clock in sight. Half past seven.

Branch had evidently come in early. Walt tried levering himself upright, this time with more success.

He hurt. He wanted coffee. He wanted to wash his face. He wanted to know who Branch was talking to, out in the main office. It wasn't Vic, or Ruby. He felt like this was something he should know.

He passed a hand over his head and considered slipping out his private door to the latrine across the upstairs anteroom, or downstairs to the shower off the long-term jail, but the mystery voice and his desire for coffee won out.

Light from the east-facing windows washed the bullpen in a bright gold that belied the cold rolling off the glass. Branch turned from the holding cell and said, "Good morning, Sheriff," in a voice bare of attitude. "Happy New Year." Beyond him, a dark-haired was leaning against the bars of the holding cell. When Branch moved, Walt saw the man in the cell glower sulkily, his left eye nearly swollen shut. _Right_.

Branch was clean shaven and his khaki shirt crisp enough to make Walt regret choosing coffee over hot water. The die being cast, he crossed to the coffee pot and fixed a cup before doing more than nodding at anyone.

"Morning," he said, after the first sip. And then, because Branch was being professional, he added, "Happy New Year." Vic wasn't in the office, but he'd known that, if just from the near-silence. Another swallow of coffee and Walt remembered the name of the man sulking in the holding cell.

Charlie Finds Night had been the capper to a New Year's Eve that had gone from _dead quiet_ to _wild and lively_ really damn fast.

Walt had gone out for one report of a car on fire, which turned out to be a garage-side bonfire that had slipped the well-lubricated grasp of its celebrants. The firestarter and the owner of the car had been one and the same, and Walt figured the loss of the car, plus the mockery the boy endured from his friends, was injury enough. The whole crowd had loitered until the fire truck left, and then – after assuring Walt they had enough sober drivers to match the remaining vehicles, had left in good order and excellent cheer, still laughing with their mortified fellow as they poured him into the lead car. Walt found himself remembering a couple of wilder nights with Henry in Alaska and returned to the office.

Vic had called from the edge of town to report her return at half past midnight. As if the rowdies had been waiting her return, the calls started then and didn't stop until nearly four. Henry called twice, the first time for a trio of women in a screaming tiff over a local, aged cowboy in the parking lot. Vic had been called away from handling the catfight to help search for a missing toddler. They'd found the little boy – chilblained and frostbit but otherwise fine - inside of half an hour. Then Walt had responded to a hit-and-run that had been complicated by the fleeing driver falling into an irrigation ditch and being found nearly comatose half a mile down the road. The EMTs had no more dropped off the shivering boy and his still weeping mother at Durant Memorial before they'd had to head out again to meet Walt and the drunken driver. The nurses on New Year's overnight shift had taken in them all with an amused tolerance, and invited Walt to invest in the office pool on the night's total tally.

Walt put down a fiver on nine patients by seven am and went back to check on Vic and the catfight. He pulled into the Red Pony's gravel lot to find the girls had already left, leaving Lenny Montibeau to bum a ride from any charitable soul. Walt took pity on Lenny, as Vic's ramrod back and folded arms declared she was fresh out. Lenny crawled into the cab thankfully and directed Walt to a trailer across town, where one of the catfight girls came skipping down the steps to collect the old grey haired wrangler.

The second time Henry called, it had been for a trio of cowboys setting off fireworks from inside the Red Pony's mudroom. The Black Cat rockets had flown true, but the aim of the cowboys had been faulty, and the second screamer had landed in the bed of a pickup owned by Charlie Finds Night, while Charlie and a paramour had been in the front seat.

"Looking at the stars," Vic had snarled to Walt as she had frog-marched Charlie to her unit. The trio of cowboys had been from out of town, Charlie was not, and four of his friends had jumped in to help. Due to varying degrees of sobriety, the squabble had been fairly evenly matched, despite the unbalanced numbers. However, the varying degrees of sobriety had also led to variable reactions to the arrival of Vic's flashing lights.

Charlie's physical response had ended with him in handcuffs. His verbal response hadn't ended, and landed him in the holding cell.

Walt came back from a separate call out to a domestic disturbance in no mood to tolerate Charlie's mouth. With the flat, stoic expression of the household's two children fresh in his mind, Walt trudged up the stairs, listening to the drunk's filthy tirade all the way, and had flung open the door to find Vic sitting at her desk, serenely filling out the report with firing range earplugs stuff in her ears.

He had to stand over her before she even noticed that he had come in. Pulling out an orange foam plug, she said, "What?" to Walt before turning to scream "Shut up!" at Charlie. In the temporary lull, Walt jerked a thumb at the cell. Vic said, "D&D, resisting arrest, and being publically stupid in Absaroka county. Henry shut up shop for the night. Can you catch the next call?"

That was all they had time for, before the phone rang and Charlie started up again. Walt retreated to his office to answer it – a fireworks complaint - and left a hastily scrawled note by Vic's elbow as an excuse to leave Charlie's indignant fury behind.

He came back at half past four to a quieter office. Vic had taped a full sheet note to the glass door – _Prisoner now asleep. DO NOT DISTURB. PS (Unless needed.) PPS Phone forwarded to pager again ( I think.) PPPS WAKE ME IF YOU NEED HELP._

Inside his office, a stack of reports sat on his desk – including two incomplete ones for the hit-and-run and the bonfire. Walt sighed and sat down to get the details of the domestic onto paper while it was still fresh in his head. The frank viciousness of the nasty quarrel between the couple had been made even uglier by the two children watching through a cracked door. The blue and red lights from his slowly revolving lightbar had poured over the children, leaving them untouched. The sound of their quarreling parents though…The voices had been a thrown stone, kicking up waves in a puddle - the kids had _quivered_ when their father started screaming at his wife. Walt had almost wished the two adults had been throwing lead at each other, instead of the words they'd used. Lead would have finished it, for better or ill. He wrote until he could hold no more of the scene in his mind.

He set the pen aside and rose to his feet, working the bones of the wrist of his writing hand. When he eased the door open to the hall, the quiet snores of the man in the cell filled the office. Vic's boots, crossed at the ankle, rested on the edge of her desk. Her jacket was draped over her torso, fake-fur collar pulled up over her nose. Walt had slunk back to his office to stretch out on his couch, figuring Vic would wake him before she went home.

Now, Branch tucked his thumbs behind his belt and ambled over to Walt and the coffee pot. "Vic said to check with you, but she thought that we could probably cut Charlie loose this morning." When Walt looked up, Branch said, "Oh, and she was heading down to Powder Junction this morning, after she washed up. Said she'd call if there was anything new."

"Sure," Walt said. He rubbed at his face. Branch still stood there, waiting. When he didn't say anything, Walt asked, "Something else?"

"Cady said she was meeting you for breakfast at the Busy Bee."

Right. "Cady came by already this morning?" The Bee traditionally opened at nine on the first of the year - because Dorothy was a traditionalist, and liked starting the year off making money. And she closed at two, because there were limits. Walt tried to figure the timing. If he drove to the cabin, and showered fast…

Branch seemed to pause a hair before he responded, but all he said was, "Saw her on the street downstairs. She said she'd be by, round eight thirty."

Well, he wasn't making it back to the cabin and back in again, even if the water pipes hadn't frozen. "Okay." Walt turned back to his office, then stopped and stepped closer to Branch. "You played ball with Tommy Youtzi, right?" Branch nodded. "He still go to St Luke's Episcopalian?"

"Think so. Why?"

"I got called out last night – well, this morning - to Tumbleweed Road. One of the Youtzi's neighbors. How about you call that Scots priest and take him with you. If I have to go out there again, I'm arresting both of them." He felt the fury building in his voice and shoved it away. The only bruise he'd seen was Tommy's black eye – an old one, gone green and yellow – but they'd both only stopped screaming at each other long enough to lay into Walt. The depths of Melissa's profanity, in particular, had been impressive. "Give her the number of the shelter in Gillette, see if he has someone to stay with. Try to talk them into storing the rifles with someone else for a while. And Branch?" He looked up, met Walt's eyes. "Try hard."

Branch frowned and nodded, clearly thinking about the implications. Walt didn't have to say, _a domestic shooting isn't going to be election gold for either of us_. Which was good, because he didn't think he could say that in a way that didn't ruin the morning before it got started.

"On it," Branch said. "Tell Cady I said Happy New Year."

Walt nodded and went looking for his emergency clean shirt.

The water in the downstairs shower took a long time to heat. Walt wiped enough steam off the mirror to shave, refusing to look too hard at the seams at the corners of his eyes, at the looseness under his jaw.

He tried to see what Lizzie had seen there, what had made her turn on the charm and play the flirt. He couldn't find it. Nothing to see there. It had to be something about being a lonely older woman, out in the mountains. Henry, the damn fool, was a year younger but Walt looked like he was a decade older. Damn Indians.

At least in Henry's case, Walt knew it wasn't a clear conscience.

The razor was ten shaves past comfortable, and Walt made another mental note to bring in new blades. Just like he had the last five or eight times he'd had to use the kit he kept in his desk.

When he made it back upstairs, Charlie Finds Night was gone, and Cady was there, sitting on his couch.

"Hey, punk." She looked like an Irish princess in a fuzzy green sweater and a black fur-lined hood. Something she'd bought in Denver, probably. The light was still gold, and caught fire in her hair. When she stood up, he could see Martha in every inch of her.

"You look good," he said after a moment, and pointed at her earrings – dark jade, that set off her sweater and her hair. "Those are pretty."

That got him a smile and a hug. "Feed me, Daddy. I'm starving." She tucked her hand in his arm and didn't let him even look at the reports on his desk.

The wind blowing south from the pole hit them like a sledgehammer between the buildings. He shook Cady's hand off his elbow and instead tucked her under his arm, both their feet crunching the wind-drift caught in the cracks in the sidewalks. The warmth of the Bee folded around them like a blanket of biscuits and new honey. Dorothy waved them to a booth and brought coffee without asking.

"What will you have, honey?" she asked Cady, and to Walt, "The usual?"

"Yeap," Walt nodded, but it took Cady ten minutes to decide between the spinach omelet and the waffles.

It had been a short stack with link sausage, when she was in grade school, and then waffles, starting the year Dorothy bought the electric Belgian griddle. Freshman year of college, she'd flirted with vegetarianism, and spinach omelets with feta cheese had been the option du jour. For three Christmases running, Cady had grieved Martha by pushing away the Christmas Eve pot roast. After graduation, either Cady's common sense or taste buds had improved, and waffles rotated with omelets, and Cady sopped up the juice from the roast venison with her mother's bacon-laced biscuits again.

Now, as Walt watched Cady work her way through a stack of pancakes, he found the empty space beside him aching again.

"You have a good New Year's, punk?" The apple juice was tart and golden in his mouth, like the juicer had squeezed out late summer into the glass. He took another swallow, signed _yes_ to Dorothy when she waved a coffee pot at him.

Cady stuffed a forkful of strawberry topped pancake in her mouth and nodded vigorously. "Missed you at the Red Pony. You making Vic do all your dirty work now?"

Walt snorted. "She volunteered. Don't tell me you were there for the rocket thing."

"Rockets? Are you serious?"

"Cross my heart."

Cady laughed. "No, me and the girls left when Sosha, Cissie and Maggie started screaming at each other, and Lenny tried to crawl under the table by the fireplace. Tell me about the rockets."

So he told her about Vic's (mis) adventures with Charlie and the three fireworks cowboys, in between sips of Dorothy's best Ethiopian dark roast and bites of the sort of shit-on-a-shingle that would have made the galley cooks in Subic Bay weep in envy. He was sure that he'd gotten some of the details of the night's adventure wrong, as most of the action had been transcribed in Vic's acerbic report-ese ['Upon arriving, the responding officer noted the primary suspect, (C. Finds Night) in a state of partial nudity, and engaged in a physical fisticuff altercation with multiple other individuals. Upon being advised to cease and desist by the responding officer, the other individuals complied, but the primary suspect chose to address the responding officer in personal and offensive terms (to wit: "Go _fuck yourself with your star, bitch, I ain't scared of you or your gun_ ")…]

By the time he got to the earplugs, Cady had both hands pressed to her face and was laughing nearly as loudly as Vic had about the fossil.

Which reminded him…

"Hey, punk, need a favor."

She took a deep breath. "Sure, anything."

"Don't you want to know what it is, yet?"

She blinked, and seemed taken aback. But this was Cady, as brave as a hurricane, and she stuck to her guns. "No. Whatever you need."

"So, ah, I guess Ferg got us all – all the office – these gifts. For Christmas."

Cady gripped the edge of the table and leaned across. "Oh my god, Daddy, Branch showed me – they're beautiful! Did you see Ruby's rubies? Did Ferg really find all those rocks himself?"

Walt shrugged. "Guess so. But…"

"It's too much." She sat back and took another bite.

"Yeah." He played with the handle of his coffee cup. "We need to get him something, something to match that. If your mother was here…"

"But she's not." When Walt flinched, Cady reached across the table, quick as a striking snake. "Dad, she's gone. I'm here. I'll help." Her hand clenched over his, fierce and painful.

He let out a breath. "Yeap." She squeezed his hand again, released it. "So…what do we get the Ferg?"

She shook her head ruefully. "Dad, he had to be working on those for weeks. Give me a day or two, okay?"

"Okay."

Cady re-applied herself to breakfast. "So," she asked, chasing whipped cream and the last strawberry with her fork, "Are you going to get any sleep today? Or just keep on powering through the day like some robo-cowboy-sheriff?"

"Henry wants me to come by for lunch."

"He probably won't be up before noon. You should nap."

"Probably."

"Going to see anyone tonight? Like for dinner?"

"It's Tuesday," he said, after swallowing another mouthful of coffee. "Lucian will be expecting me for chess."

"You tell Uncle Lucian I said hi. And you take a nap. You always try to get through New Year's Day on no sleep, and you never manage it. Remember that time you nearly ran off the road?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "I never told you about that." Cady grinned at him and slid out of the booth. Walt threw two bills on the table and followed her to the door.

"No," Cady admitted. "Mom did. Promise me you'll sleep."

Cady walked him to the Bronco, and stood on the sidewalk in the biting wind until he relented and cranked the vehicle. He thought about circling the block and parking at the loading dock, just to be contrary, but the breakfast sat warm in his belly and made sleep sound like a pretty good idea, despite the coffee.

At the cabin, he found the wind had scoured the snow from the porch, except for the narrow strip of melt at the bottom of the door. He kicked the frame twice to knock it loose of the icy seal, and stepped into a room little warmer than the sheriff's office had been the night before.

By the time he'd brought in two loads of firewood, re-loaded the stove, checked the horses in the lean-to – content enough with their hay rack, and like most range stock, unfazed by the cold so long as they had a windbreak – and broken the ice in their water bucket, he was beginning to feel the length of the previous night. He spent a few minutes leaning on the fence and scratching the black mare under her jaw. He stopped when he found himself nodding off in the cloud of her warm breath, and left her to her companion and her hay with a pat on the shoulder.

A nap, then, before going back into town for lunch with Henry. Walt kicked off his boots and wrapt the least scratchy wool blanket around his shoulders. He settled back in the stove-side chair with a sigh, stretching his feet out towards the glowing stove. He'd just rest a few minutes…

The screen door slammed. Walt jerked awake for the second time that day.

Henry pushed the inner door shut with his shoulder, two brown paper grocery bags in his arms.

Walt blinked. "What are you doing here?" He looked at the window, at the angle of the light. "What time is it?"

Henry gave him that look, the one Henry had been using since seventh grade history class. "I am here for lunch," he said, slow and patient, in the same way as he had attempted to help Walt parse the difference between Mongols and Mughals. "It is past two in the afternoon."

Walt rubbed his face. The fire in the stove had died down and his feet were cold despite the thick socks. "I thought we were meeting at the Red Pony."

Henry put the food down on the counter. "So did I." He stepped into the living room and looked around almost approvingly. "I am pleased to see you have made some improvements." Henry nodded at the fresh – _fresher_ , Walt'd re-done the caulking two weeks before – plaster around the south-facing window. "Also that you have cleaned." He moved back into the kitchen and began making sorting-food noises.

"Got tired of the draft around the window." Walt rose, trying to not wince as his knees creaked.

"As had I. But that does not explain the cleaning. Are you planning on having company over?"

"No. Don't know why I even let you in." He pulled a pair of split logs from the stack against the wall and threw them into the stove.

Henry snorted and turned the knob for the stove. It clicked fruitlessly. "There is no gas. Are you out?"

"…might be." Walt thought. "There's a new tank, I think. Got it a couple weeks back." At the same time he'd had to do a supply run, for hardware to install the window handles. "Should be right next to the old one." Outside, on the corral side of the porch, and under a drift of snow.

Henry turned the stove off and turned to frown at Walt with folded arms. "Go fix it."

"When did you turn into such a crabby old woman?"

"The same time your balls dropped. I waited on you. I am hungry. Go fix the gas tank so I can cook. I will make lunch. If you are very quiet and do not whine much, I may even make some for you."

Walt sighed and pulled on his coat. The snow was hard packed against the door to the tank cubby, and Walt got ice inside both his gloves. _This better be worth it_ , he thought.

It was.

An hour later, Walt pushed away the remains of a chicken-fried steak with gravy and lima beans and sighed. "Thanks."

Henry raised his coffee cup in a salute. "You are welcome." He drank, considering Walt. "You still look tired. I hear that it was a busy night, even after I closed the bar."

"It was." Walt considered the table and the dirty dishes. "Now I might need another nap."

"You should consider it." Henry rose, leaving his plate on the table. "I have to get back and open for tonight." His coat buttoned, he stood at the door, looking at Walt.

"What?"

Whatever it had been, Henry did not say. Instead, he asked, "Are you going to play chess with Lucian tonight?"

"Unless the old goat dies of orneriness between now and seven, yes."

"Consider stopping at your office before you go over." And with that Henry let himself out, leaving Walt to deal with the leftovers, the dishes, and an uneasy feeling in his gut.

He wasn't sure what Henry had meant, but if Henry had thought it – whatever _it_ was – warranted dealing with immediately, he would have said so. And Walt hadn't been in the habit of calling in to check on people – particularly not Branch – so there was no assurance that the younger man wouldn't react with suspicion and hostility.

He tried to get another nap in, after he cleaned up the kitchen, but the sense of unease kept him from doing more than dozing. After an hour, he gave it up as a lost cause and packed up the lunch left-overs for Lucian.

The air outside was bracingly cold, and the sunlight had gone from heatless gold to cold pale milk. The Bronco's tires were loud on the black road, laid out long and smooth on the white shirt of the landscape.

Branch looked up in mild surprise when Walt opened the main door.

"Hey," Walt said, hat in his hand. He didn't hang it on the coat tree, not right away. Around the corner, something muttered and clanked inside the holding cell.

"Didn't expect to see you in today." Branch looked aside as he spoke, scowling at the holding cell. He extended his hand, snapped his fingers and pointed. The rustling stopped.

"Came to sign off on the reports from last night," Walt said, which was true enough. He pushed though the knee gate in the bullpen fence. There were three men – no, three _boys_ – in the holding cell, in variations of denim, tee shirt, and flannel. Two white boys, one with the look of the Mexicans who worked out at Lamport's place, farming truck vegetables over the warmer months. All three of them looked miserable.

Branch shrugged. "No rush. Vic still has a couple out, I think." He leaned back in his chair.

"Who's this?"

"Vic's quail nabbers."

Walt looked at the holding cell and back to Branch. "You're serious. Already?"

"As a heart attack. They've been here since just before noon." Branch rose to his feet and wandered to the other side of the bullpen to pour himself a cup of coffee. Walt trailed after him, respecting the attempt at salvaging the boys' pride. "She went back out this morning and evidently terrorized Larry, Moe and Curly here into confessing." Branch's voice was low, but the three boys in the cell all flinched when Walt's eye came back on them.

"Little guy's the ringleader, the quail producer's kid," Branch went on. "His buddies are the quail-feeding help and the driver of the get-away Nissan." He offered Walt the last dark syrup in the carafe, returning it to the percolator when Walt declined. Grudging admiration colored Branch's voice. "The way she told it, the get-away guy – that's Curly," the Hispanic boy with the crew-cut and a bruised cheekbone looked away. "He broke and ran when Vic stopped at the gas station up the road to check their tapes. There was a bad image of the vehicle on the farm tapes, which Larry there" – Branch pointed at the skinniest of the trio, a sandy-haired boy with spots still on his face – "didn't get a chance to wipe before his dad got suspicious."

Walt rubbed his chin. "All their parents been notified?"

"Yeah. The kid's dad evidently nearly threw him into Vic's truck. Big guy Moe's over eighteen, but I called his folks anyway. Judge Selby said to hold all of them 'til morning."

"Didn't want to come in on the holiday."

Branch grinned. "Said it would do them good." He sipped his coffee. "She did good work, all the paperwork's already wrapped up on this lot. On your desk."

Walt nodded, unwilling to tarnish Branch's spirit of camaraderie by commenting on it. "You going to be okay with all three of them? Need me or Vic to spell you?"

Branch hesitated, then straightened his shoulders. "Nope, I got it. You guys were out all last night, and anyway Vic said when she woke up she was going to hit the Red Pony, so I don't think she's going to be in any condition to help." He considered the kids in the cell. "Not that I blame her."

"Okay." Walt thought about it. "I've got left-overs in the Bronco. Chicken-fried steak."

"Naw, got someone bringing me supper later. " Branch jerked his chin at the holding cell. "These guys'll have to make do with micro potpies."

"Well, I'll be in town a while, over at Lucian's. Call me if you need anything."

"I won't."

Walt was halfway to the door before he remembered the reports.

Top of the stack was Vic's write-up of the break-in of White's Quail. He put his hat down, brim up, and read through the report, slowly. When he was done, the world had gone dark outside.

 _The apprehending officer responded to a report of a break in at the White Quail Farm on the evening of 31 December, and made contact with suspect two (J. Rodgers, at that time playing the part of the complainant) and found damage as described in annex two…(not listed: lost "average daily gain" (ie fat on birds) from distress of flock, tbd per owner, F. White) …The apprehending officer then called at the Quick Fix Grab'n'Go in order to inquire as to the possibility of security cameras which had captured the rare-to-non-existent passing vehicle traffic on the evening prior…suspect three (J. Rodriquez) was apprehended after a brief footchase during which he collided with the door, a protective concrete pillar, and a display case of fake-flavor fruit pies in lemon, red, and off-orange (photograph of establishment door, pillar, and fruit pies at annex four)…_

He turned back to the first page, Vic's voice so strong in the report he almost called out to her, as if she were in the building, and not just her words. Walt flipped through the rest of the folder, scrawled his signature in half a dozen places, and went out his private door.

At the Durant Home for Assisted Living, Lucian was waiting on him, with the bottle of bourbon already open and the board set with armies in black and white.

When Walt waved off the drink, Lucian actually managed to act insulted for a good ten seconds. "What, my booze not good enough for you? The hell with you, more for me." He took Walt's glass and dumped the Pappy's into his own tumbler, downing half of it in one motion.

"There," Lucian said, rapping the glass back on the table. "Now maybe it'll be a fair fight."

It wasn't. Lucian won the first match in less than fifteen moves, the second in less than twenty. After that, Walt figured, Lucian started throwing the game, and it took them almost an hour to finish the next one.

Halfway through the fourth match, with the level of bourbon markedly lower in the bottle, Lucian said, out of the blue, "Good to see you doing better."

Walt thought about pretending he didn't know what Lucian was talking about, but focused on avoiding the queen-and-knight trap Lucian had set for him instead. "It's good to be doing better," he said, after sacrificing a pawn.

"You give any thought to sparking back at that Ambrose woman?"

"Quit trying to distract me." He considered the way Lucian's queen loomed over his rook and – recklessly – moved a bishop into the fray."And who says I haven't been?"

Lucian looked at him over the rim of his glasses. "Ever'body."

"Sometimes all those everybodies don't know as much as they think."

"Weeellll," Lucian drawled, his eyes on the board, I don't know about that." He shifted his queen. "Might be wishful thinking. Might be people wishing you good luck."

"Don't know if I need luck." He spotted an opening, lifted a finger to touch his remaining knight, then looked again.

"Playing me, aren't you? You need all the luck you can get."

Walt picked up the knight and moved it decisively. "Check. Mate." He held Lucian's eyes, saw the lack of surprise. "You're letting me win."

Lucian's mouth twisted. "Bullshit. You just got lucky, that's all."

"I have spent all day today, being coddled and coo'ed at by everyone I know. Except Henry." He paused, thought about the chicken-fried steak and the gravy and the way Henry had talked of nothing at all over lunch. _Well, Henry, too, then_. Even Branch had been trying extra hard.

"What can I say? It's a weird time of year. Common decency and peace on earth breaking out all over the goddamn place."

Walt let his breath out long and slow. "Could be." He thought of previous years, when he would have brought by Cady and Martha, in the week before Christmas, and spent the evening playing endless games of chess with Lucian while the girls were shopping. "I should bring Cady by, let the two of you catch up. If you promise to be on good behavior."

Lucian shrugged and began setting up the board again. "Or you could just bring that high-stepping deputy of yours. Won't have to promise nothing, then."

"No."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because with the Ferg on vacation, I can't afford to lose her for the mandatory ten-day-suspension after she shoots you."

"That's your look-out." He spun the board so that white faced Walt. "Make your move, troop."

Walt hesitated, touched a rook. "You going to play for real now?"

Lucian's eyes creased. "Cross my heart."

 _Enough hoping for death in this place_ , Walt thought.

They played two more games, as the retirement home settled deeper into late evening quiet. Walt lost both of them, but not by much.

Lucian set the board up for another go and poured more bourbon into his glass. He lifted the bottle, wordlessly offering Walt another chance.

 _Why not_ , Walt thought, but before he could say it, a hesitant hand knocked at the door.

"What!"

Kim from the reception desk stuck her head in the room. "Sheriff, phone call for you, up front." She disappeared.

"Tell 'em to leave a damn message!" Lucian bellowed at the closed door, but Walt was already rising to his feet.

"Here," he said, and shifted the knight. Reti's Opening. He picked up his hat. "Happy New Year."

"Goddamn fool," Lucian said, "Happy horseshit," and sat back to study the board.

Kim handed Walt the phone, and even as he closed his hand on it, he knew who was calling. "Hey."

"I'm calling in a m-marker." Vic, and by the voice, not entirely sober. "Only I can't think up any good lines."

"Where are you?"

"Red Pony. At the bar. By myself."

A little too much detail. "Let me talk to Henry."

"…K." A pause, and then Vic's voice screeched, "Henry! For you!"

Another pause, while Walt shifted his fingers on the receiver and listened to the bar chatter, until Henry's voice said, "You are coming to get her?"

"Yeah. On my way."

Some of the tension must have come through the line. Henry's voice grew amused. "Do not rush. She is behaving. Mostly." He hung up, cutting off Vic's squall of protest.

Walt handed the phone back to Kim. "Tell Lucian I'll see him next week." She scowled at him, but wished him a happy New Year anyway.

He drove briskly but within the posted limit to the Red Pony, thinking of Vic's voice and how she had said, _okay_ , but sharp and broken off at both ends.

Henry pointed with his chin at the back of the bar. "Ladies' room. I sent Cady to keep her company."

"Cady's here?"

Henry shrugged. "Just for supper. I believe she has other plans." He looked Walt straight in the eye. "Which I will not tell you."

Walt sighed. "Vic tell you anything?"

"I take it her husband called on her cell phone." He shrugged. "That is all I know."

At that moment, Cady came through the door to the ladies' room and held it open. Vic strode after her, with that purposeful, careful stride that marked a well-intoxicated person who had a pretty good idea how drunk they were. She stopped at the bar and gathered up her coat, fishing out her keys as she did.

Walt was too far away to hear what Vic said to Cady as she passed over the keys, but whatever it was made Cady laugh out loud. Vic grinned back and then turned to Walt, squaring her shoulders and marching forward resolutely.

"Hey," she said, and then stopped, blinking. "You came."

Whatever Walt had thought a well-beered Vic would be, monosyllabic wasn't it. "Yeah, I did. You ready to go?"

"Yeap. Home. To my home, I mean." She turned to Henry. "Thanks. I think."

"It is not a problem. Happy New Year."

That won Henry a dazzling smile. "Happy New Year, Henry," Vic said, and turned to go.

Down the bar, Cady waved cheerily at Walt, clearly in no hurry to wander over and get interrogated by her father about what she was doing at the bar two nights in a row. Walt took a step towards her, only to collide with Vic, sashaying left when she should have gone right. "Ooof," she said, and staggered back.

He caught her by the shoulders. Vic squared her shoulders again and swiped her hair off her face. She'd rebraided it, but the fine strands were already coming undone. "I'm okay," she said and pushed against his hands.

He took a breath – to argue with her, to call after Cady, he wasn't sure – and let it out again. She'd put on perfume, too – something that smelled like holiday drinks. Nutmeg, cloves, oranges.

He dropped his hands, let her lead the way out.

She walked a more or less straight line, only swinging wide around the duallie at the end of the row before re-orienting herself and trudging on towards Walt's unit. The wind had died down – it was no longer a polar-blast-through-Montana-fence-lines, but the temperature had plummeted as soon as the sun had set. He thought the Bronco had barely had enough time to cool off, but Vic hunched down into her jacket as soon as she had the door shut.

"Jesus, it's cold out."

He cranked the ignition and didn't even try to keep the grin out of his voice. "Yeap. Gets that way out here." He reached over and angled the vents towards her, his hand bumping against hers as she reached for the lukewarm air. "Sorry."

"No problem. Don't apologize. I'm sorry." She blew her breath out in a gusty sigh, shuddering a little. "I am, I mean. Sorry. And tank – thankful. Fuck. I 'preciate the ride."

She was apologetic, he thought, but not hangdog. She was…happy. Or something like.

She also caught him staring. "What?"

"Nothing." It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her. But this was Vic. If he waited long enough, she'd tell him.

"Sean called. They fixed the – the whatever it was. Faster than they thought. Lickty-split."

"No Cheyenne?"

She shook her head. "No Cheyenne. He called. He's on his way back. He called the house first. He said…Anyway. And I thought, _girl, it would probably be good if you were home when your husband got there._ So I called you."

Walt blinked, and ran through that again. "Okay."

"Thank you for not shouting at me."

Okay. "Don't see why I'd do that."

"Sometimes its okay. My brothers, me, my mom, even my Dad sometimes – there was always some shouting going on when I was growing up. Not a biggie."

"Not going to shout at you tonight, Vic."

"Good. Because the last thing I can deal with today, after the melt down at the quail place, and all night with Charlie Finds Night, and fucking Sean giving me shit, is someone else yelling at me for trying to do the right thing. Fuck me. I do fuck things up – a lot – and there's stuff I screw up deliberately on purpose even when I know better, but what I hate, what I really hate, is people who get their asses chapped when I'm doing things right."

She was evidently sobering up.

"You know what I mean?"

"Yeap."

Walt turned left off the highway. It was the long way around, but it would avoid that slick corner on Ellis that was always packed with ice for days after a storm. The road straightened out and he risked a glance at Vic.

She had scrunched herself around in the truck, her back to the door, frowning at him. "Really? You? I mean, all the crap – I give you crap, Branch gives you crap, Ferg is a needy little shit even if he has great taste in rocks, Cady won't hardly let you breathe without having an opinion on it. But look at you –" she waved a hand at him, at the truck, at Wyoming. "You just take it, and nod, and keep on, keeping on. Let it all roll off. It's like – it's like I could smack you a good one, just to see if you're still human. Smack you or kiss you, either one…"

He kept his eyes on the road but missed the turn-off anyway.

"Woops."

He swallowed, said, "I'll circle around up at Cactus."

This far out, beyond the last streetlight, the sky was thick with stars. The trees leaned back from the road, opening up the available horizon to the rim of the mountains. Moonlight picked out the snow-capped peaks like a band of gold in a clump of snowy quartz. Nights like this, he could drive on for hours, drinking in the beauty on the other side of the dust-streaked windshield.

"Not what I meant."

"I know." If he kept on driving, on toward the arc of the Milky Way over the Bighorns, he didn't think she'd raise a fuss.

He came up on Cactus Road, made a careful turn that didn't drop them into the ditch, and pointed the Bronco back the way they had come. Vic still watched him, her jacket open and showing the tight blouse she'd worn to the bar, one leg drawn up on the seat. The truck was warm now, re-circulating air that smelled of cloves.

He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and said, "I can't advise you to take that course of action."

She snorted. "I can figure that out, thanks."

"You're my deputy."

"No shit, Sherlock."

"And you're married."

"I know." She heaved a heavy sigh, making the shirt move under her coat. "I know."

The Bronco's wheels dropped off the pavement and crunched into her gravel driveway. He pulled as far forward as he dared and stopped the Bronco so the lights shown full on the door. Didn't put it in park. Vic fumbled with the seat belt and slid her legs out of the cab, stopping for a long breath with the door open, so the wind blew frost and oranges at him.

He said, "Vic," just as she slammed the door.

Through the window, he watched her lift a hand to the latch, then wave it in irritation, jam her hands into her pockets, and stomp around to his side of the Bronco.

Walt rolled the window down, sticking mechanism be damned. He wanted the door between them. It was safer that way.

Vic stood close to the Bronco, swaying a little. Then she leaned close enough to touch the door and stilled. Her face was set, resolved. She might have looked at Philadelphia like that, when she left her hometown to follow her husband. He kept his hands on the steering wheel, and did not reach out to rake the hair out of her eyes.

"Vic," he said. "Vic, you did good today. That was solid work."

She blinked, let the delighted grin flow over her face like spring over a hillside, then grew somber again. "Don't stay," she said.

"I won't." He nodded at the front door. "You go, get on inside, and I'll leave."

"Thanks."

He watched her march, ramrod straight, up the steps to the red porch. She glanced over her shoulder twice as she worked the lock, scowling at the blinding headlamps. He put a hand to his mouth and stayed in the truck. When she shoved the front door open, he flicked the lights at her, put the Bronco in reverse, and pulled away.

 _If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all._

The window didn't roll all the way up, and he drove back to his cabin with the cold wind biting at his bare skin. By the time he pulled in front of the cabin, his face was stiff and his fingers ached.

Against all reason, the air in the Bronco still smelled of oranges and cloves.

* * *

/end/

* * *

 **Author's Notes:** T for language. Smutless. Could be read as gen, but I think this last chapter slides pretty far into UST territory. Set around the start of S2-ish. TV-verse, with some book characterization creep. Canon pairings. Titles from the Corb Lund song "The Rodeo's Over." Many, **many** thanks to the beta for encouragement and last minute indulgences. (This last chapter was twice as long as I promised the whole story would. She still came through.)

This chapter is for twisted chick, who asked for Walt, Cady, Henry and Lucian, and asked for a story _about the four of them over New Year's? any year? What do they do to celebrate? What are their traditions?_

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoy the tv show and the novels as much as I do.


End file.
